Monday, October 26, 2009

Perfectly Clear

We get so spoiled by having nice weather for a few days that a day like today really messes things up. After a gorgeous weekend of 70s temps and clear skies, my boys have quickly grown accustom to running around in the back yard for hours. Little Port especially, was none too pleased when he got up this morning and put on his shoes, only to not be allowed outside in the 54 degree rainy day.

My back yard is once again a babbling brook in one area, mud pit in the other.

At least my garden will like it. I hope. I am afraid it may be too cold on days like this.

The Kiddo and I duked it out today in a terrible battle that just came out of nowhere. My usually completely UN-picky boy demanded that I cut his grilled cheese sandwich into the shape of a football.

Seriously. I have never done anything like that beyond "triangle" or "rectangle". Fancy sandwich cutting is just not my thing. I don't even cut the crusts off.

Anyway - after acquiring a more proper request, I cut one half (it had already been cut into triangles) into a football shape, the best way I could. I thought I did a pretty good job, personally. But I guess it wasn't enough for His Highness, because he quite emphatically crossed his arms, declared my carving skills inadequate and refused to eat his sandwich.

And in all my parenting glory I promptly took away his lunch and sent him to his room.

And thus the battle began.

I don't really know where this little attitude has come from. He not only pitches fits now, he screams and tries to think of names to call me, "You're a BIG,... a Big...You ARE A....You are SUCH a...uh....!!!!"

Thankfully, he hasn't thought of anything yet.

But he still gets in trouble for the fit and the screaming. And it sucks that I have to scream over him just to get him to hear me. And of course, my screaming scares the baby who follows us everywhere and knows how to open closed doors. And when I scare the baby it makes me even more angry.

Spiraling down, down, down...

I pulled the Batman Costume out of his room and it is sitting on the counter in the kitchen now. He's been warned that more of this behavior will result in a return of the costume and us rsvp-ing "no" to the party we were planning to attend. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that, but I really am out of currency here. I've taken away video games for a week, he lost computer time today, and there really isn't much left that will give me immediate improvement.

And now the rainy, cold day makes it all that much harder because there is no where to go and nothing to do. Kiddo has been running from the dining room to the living room and jumping over a baby toy as a hurdle. He's going to break something, either in the house or on himself, but I haven't stopped him because he needs to blow off that energy.

I foresee several around-the-house races in my immediate future. We all need to run a little.

I have chili on the stove bubbling away, pumpkin muffins on the roster for later and hopefully a back rub coming from my better half (thus the pumpkin muffins... ;-) ).

wishing for that sunny day of not too long ago...

Until,
D :)

PS. Hop on over to Musing Mommies if you are interested in our latest giveaway and a blog post challenge! We really appreciate any and all participation!

3 comments:

Victoria said...

Four year olds are awesome, huh?

I have the downward spiral, who-can-scream-loudest battles, too. And at some point I realize I'm in a screaming match with a four year old. I actually had to have the ex point out to me that I was taking a very low road :) It's so hard to find your rational brain at those moments, isn't it?

Tons of empathetic "better day" vibes coming you way!

Barb said...

I feel your pain and I am sorry that your little man is being beyond challenging right now. Maybe you should toss him out in the mud to play. Just hose him off when he is done.

Hopefully this rough patch will be over soon.

Jill said...

This is going to sounds weird. Have you considered taking up jogging with him? I did this last year when we were hitting a rough behavior patch and things improved. Was it doing something together? Was it the discipline in seeing how far you can run? Was it the energy release? No clue! In fact I need to start again! HAHA and as you can probably guess it's the last thing my pregnant belly wants to do right now! Ahhhh...PHASES!